The Place of Patient-Centred Care in Medical Professional Culture: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Patient-centred care (PCC) has been defined in many ways over the past three decades. Core components of patient-centred care have been identified as: respect for patient preferences and values; emotional support; physical comfort; information, communication and education; continuity and transition; coordination of care; involvement of the family and friends and access to care (Epstein and Street, 2011). The first of these — respect for patients’ needs and preferences — has emerged as the most consistent element among the many definitions of patient-centred care (Luxford et al., 2011). This, in turn, entails facilitating patients’ involvement in their own care by sharing information with patients, exploring patients’ perspectives and values, helping with decision-making, facilitating access to care and enabling patients to follow through with behavioural changes (Epstein et al., 2010).KeywordsHigh Risk Prostate CancerNarrative MedicinePhysical ComfortExecutive DecisionConsistent ElementThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.